


Storm Fox

by Angelic_Xia



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Curse Breaking, Cursed!Gokudera Hayato, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Fox!Gokudera Hayato, Implied/Referenced Dream Sex, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Pet au, Pre-Canon, Protective Gokudera Hayato, Russian Domesticated Foxes exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2020-07-19 21:50:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19981078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelic_Xia/pseuds/Angelic_Xia
Summary: Pet AU, pre-canon - Tsuna finds a stray puppy, decides to adopt it because he's lonely, and names it Hayato. (But I can’t do that to poor baby Tsu, who is terrified of dogs. So, sorry, Sefiru, you get this instead!)Now a chaptered story!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sefiru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sefiru/gifts).



“HIIIEEE!” There’s a grey d-d-d-do- err, a grey not-cat-pet staring at him. He’d been walking home when a little mewl from a closed box had attracted his attention. He doesn’t like to admit it to his Kaa-chan, but he’s lonely. He has no friends, not any more, and he gets bullied. If he had a cat he’d love it and cuddle it and maybe he’d not be so scared all the time. But when he had lifted the flap, it wasn't a cat.

He backs away when the … not-cat makes that sound again, staring at him. He can’t leave it; it looks so alone. Like him. Lost and alone and sad. He picks it up, and it licks his chin.

* * *

“Kaa-chan, can we have a pet?”

“Ara? Sure, Tsu-kun! I don’t see why not. What do you want? A cat? A rabbit? A bird?”

“Umm … I kind of already found one?” She turns around.

“Tsuna! Put that back outside! That’s not a pet!” She stares in shock at the baby fox her son brought home.

“But Kaa-chan, someone threw him out! He was in a box with water and a blanket and it said ‘FREE’!”

“Tsuna …” She tries to be gentle; her son is only ten, after all, and has a delicate, gentle personality. She won't tell him the fox had likely made a meal of the animal - or animals - that had been in the box before jumping in for warmth. “That’s not a dog. That’s a baby fox. We can’t keep him; foxes don’t belong in homes.”

“But he’s light grey and he’s got spots and floppy ears!” It does. Why does it have spots and floppy ears? A shorter nose, too. Wait, hadn’t she seen something once about those people in Russia who bred foxes to be friendly?

“Well, let’s take it to the vet. If the vet says it’s safe, then we can keep it.” She smiles as her son cheers and almost melts when the fox cub licks his chin, making her normally withdrawn and quiet boy giggle. Maybe this is a good thing.

* * *

"Haha! That's a cool dog! What kind is it? Does it have a name?" He stares up - _way_ up - at the tall boy who seems vaguely familiar. Hayato - the name he'd decided on for his fox last year - makes that whine-chuff noise and he gets that ache behind his eyes again and he _remembers_. Days spent exploring, sleepovers, play-dates, birthdays, sushi. A kind man who looks just like his son, hugs, a kind woman with the same chin as her son, laughter, tears and a funeral. Learning stances and grips and how to move, how to redirect shoves and hits, how to use momentum against people; how to pinch and stomp, where to hit, how to get away, how to scream, how to run and hide. Sushi and steaming donburi, cold soba and shiruko, snowball fights and water battles, sledding and wagon rides, baseball and kendo and naginatajutsu. His hands try to hold a nonexistent naginata, and he feels more coordinated, muscle memory returning. He remembers Takeshi watching him, too, for years, and keeping him safe from the worst of things.

"Takeshi-nii? It's me, Tsuna. We used to play together when we were little … we were like brothers …” Takeshi-kun's eyes brighten, and his smile becomes more real.

"Tsu-tan! You remember me now! So where'd ya get the fox?"

"Hiiieee! You knew?"

"Tsu-tan, I'm not an idiot, no matter what it looks like." Takeshi-nii's always been smart, but hates school, prefers learning things as he moves. "That is so a fox. What's its name?"

He smiles at his Takeshi-nii, who has plopped down next to him. Maybe they'd be friends again! "This is Hayato. He's a Russian Domesticated Fox, and I found him in a box in the alley behind the bakery Eiko-kaa liked last year. Aa, Takeshi-nii?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm sorry for forgetting you."

"Maa, maa. I can't say it didn't hurt my feelings, because it did, but you remember me now! I'm happy you - crap. Mochida. He hates you. Wanna go home and hang out? You can call your mom from my place - it's closer." Takeshi-nii pulls him up and starts running, leaving Hayato to run at his heels. "Come on! Oyaji'll make us both sushi!"

* * *

His son barrels in through the front door of the shop, pulling someone behind him. He recognises that shock of hair - does the boy ever comb it? - and gapes openly before collecting himself and smiling. "So, who's this, Takeshi?"

He sees the confusion on the boy's face, and a tiny stirring of locked Flames, and Tsuna's face smooths out, and the boy who was as much his son as Takeshi smiles. "Hi, Tsuyoshi-tou-san. I'm sorry for forgetting. Can Hayato and I come in, please?" A little grey-splotched white fox pokes his nose into the shop, then bounds over to the tiny brunet boy, yipping happily, left ear-tip flopping around. "This is Hayato. He's a Russian Domesticated Fox and he's very friendly - most of the time. He doesn't seem to like Takeshi-nii getting close to me much, but I think that's 'cause he's never seen him and thinks he's being too friendly too fast."

"Welcome back, Tsuna. I'll call Nana-san for you. Why don't you go upstairs and I'll bring you three snacks, hmm?" He eyes the little fox, who eyes him back, nods, and follows his master up the stairs. He smiles knowingly; for a second the little fox's eyes had glowed bright crimson.

* * *

Another year with Hayato, another Gotcha Day, and he, his fox, and his best friend are playing around with his little wisps of fire - Sky Flames, Tsuyoshi-tou-san had called them, and he'd learned a lot about them and the other Flames. "So, Tsu-kun, excited to start Nami-chuu? Imagine the teachers when they meet Haya-kun, haha!"

Hayato growls once at Takeshi, who laughs and pets Hayato between the ears, a flicker of blue making the little fox slump into his master's legs and whine sleepily. "Mm, it was nice of Hibari-senpai to allow him. Who knew a therapy animal is an actual thing?"

Takeshi looks at him consideringly. "You shriek less when he's around, and don't think I've not noticed you have less panic attacks. You know I kept an eye out for you even when you didn't remember me. You're more yourself now than you have been in a long time."

* * *

He stares sleepily at his Sky, the tall idiot teasing and laughing with him, and his Sky teasing back. It's not so bad, this life, with the soft twisted-rope collar and its shrine-blessed bell, and the pets, and scritches, and good food, and a warm bed he shares with his Sky. He's been working at the clinging, choking Seal and it's almost gone. Another two weeks, and his Sky will be whole again, all of himself. He dozes.

"Hayato!" His Sky calls him, his name - _his_ name, his _own_ name - falling from those soft lips in that voice like bells, and he follows, as he knows he will for the rest of his days.

The idiot Rain has left, and his Sky, his Tsuna, is getting ready for bed, Hayato already curled up waiting for him. He'd showered with his Sky, Tsuna shampooing him and trimming his nails and oiling his fur to make it shine and bounce and fluff up in that way that makes what he is unmistakeable, and been dried off, and brushed. Tsuna didn't take half as much care with his own appearance, and being that valued makes him melt. Tomorrow will be a new day, with a new school, and new challenges.

His Tsuna curls around him, warm and sleepy, and together they drift off.

* * *

The first week in school has been terrifying. Hayato bit four people, one a teacher, but it was why that's terrifying: each of those people have left livid black-purple bruises on him, ones that had been dark red just minutes after they had been placed, and one student had pushed him down a stairwell. The bullying had never been this bad; not only is he called Dame-Tsuna, useless, but when he proved he was getting better they'd accused him of cheating, even during gym classes. (How one could cheat at 50 and 100 meter runs never quite made sense.)

At least the physical bullying has stopped. The biting incidents had even gotten two students suspended, one expelled, and a teacher fired. Nezu isn't much missed, but Mochida was very popular and he's already gotten threats due to his expulsion.

Takeshi-kun is settling in as Kendo captain, though, after having beaten all challengers within moments, and is teaching not just how to use a sword but the codes of proper behavior as well. He himself has joined ikebana club and the girls are rather welcoming and had been since his first three arrangements, a sort of challenge where he had to create a seasonally-appropriate traditional arrangement, a semi-traditional arrangement, and a modern non-traditional arrangement, all with specific meanings that the girls had to guess. The third had tripped them up, as he had used flowers that meant things in both hanakotoba and Italian flower language that had very different meanings; here it was an expression of minor annoyance in their views of his competence but in Italy it was a message of peace and safety.

Hayato has been very attentive lately, chiffing at him a lot and staying if not in physical contact then within a meter of him at all times. He's felt amazing, and warm, and focussed, in a way he hasn't since he was very little. His Flames have been coming easier to him, have been more reflexive, and he had felt a thread of them reach towards Takeshi-kun and take root a few days ago, the beginnings of a solid Element bond.

And one more to his Hayato, one that came with a disturbing set of dreams of a very, _very_ pretty boy his own age that he knew with the certainty of the Sky in his blood was his Hayato, with mid-back-length silver hair, clear jade-green eyes, and a tail and a set of fox-ears, the left ear with one tip flopping down. Oh, and gorgeous, pliant lips and a very, very skilled set of long-fingered hands that knew exactly how to touch him and -

He wakes up with a problem, and is thankful that he woke up with the time to take care of it in the shower, Hayato following him, making him blush, and curling just out of reach of the shower spray to watch him, appreciation and love coiling down the bond he still didn’t like to acknowledge he had with his fox.

What is even worse, even more unsettling than his first week at school, is staring down at the Sun Arcobaleno on his doorstep, his mother having called the cursed man to tutor him because of a very unconvincing flyer shoved into their mailbox.

So now he's walking to school, Takeshi-nii already there, Hayato (call me Haya, tesoro) curling contentedly on his shoulders, when he comes across Sasagawa-chan, head of Ikebana club, who greets him and compliments him on the doubled meanings he’s hidden in so many of his arrangements.

“A-aa. Y-you think so?” He’s stammering and blushing at the compliment; he still thinks she’s much more skilled.

“Yes! Your use of Italian flower language as well as hanakotoba to make such varying messages is amazingly creative, and not only that but your arrangements are gorgeous, thematically-appropriate, and so creative! You could easily make a living right now on them!" She’s sparkling at him now, the smile and adorable head-tilt she’s famous for, and Hayato takes that moment to lick his ear and gently nip at it, making him blush harder and a curl of arousal thread through his Flames.

She rushes off after her brother, waving a ‘see you at club today!’ behind her, and Reborn, having hidden throughout the encounter, reappears and smirks at him from under a tilted fedora.

“You have a crush.” His stammer and wild denial is ignored. “Of course you do. Why else would a male join a club as girly as flower arranging?”

“Because I like it! And it’s a perfectly gender-neutral occupation in Japan! There are five other boys of varying ages in Ikebana club and two have girlfriends outside of club; one other has a marriage arranged. All of them enjoy it for itself.”

The baby-shaped man in front of him scoffs. “That will have to stop; no Don would be caught dead playing with flowers.” He laughs, remembering the stories Tsuyoshi-tou-san tells him and Takeshi about the various hobbies the Dons of the Vongola Alliance and the other tangential Famiglie have actually engaged in in front of him while hiring the Shigure. Don Vongola actively gardens and arranges flowers in vases in front of various freelance hitmen!

“You think that’s a joke?” The man’s eyes flash.

“I think it's hilarious and a deliberate lie to boot. Don Vongola actively gardens and arranges flowers in front of various hitmen and other Dons. The late Don Cavallone groomed his horses in the same situation and took meetings on horseback checking his herds. Don Scolari embroiders everywhere and wears clothes he has embellished, often ones he’s worked on in front of people. Donna Volpe makes her own clothes and everyone knows it as she does so in front of people. Shigure-sama is very forthcoming about his time in Italy.”

“Well you won’t. It’s long past time for the arts-and-crafts generation to go. And I saw how you blushed and felt that edge to your flames; you will admit to it with your dying will.”

Hayato makes a sound like a Western demon right in his ear, then there’s a crack and pain, and he knows no more.

* * *

His Tsuna collapses, a hole in his forehead leaking a thin red trail, shot dead in front of him, and he _snarls_. He’s about to lunge at the tiny thing that is not a baby when he feels a white-hot flare of Sky and he’s scooped up.

“Re-BORN! Refuse the Vongola and claim my Storm with all the strength of my Sky!” If foxes could blush, he would, and he feels the Mist-binding shift, weakening. His eyes feel strange for a split-second; had they turned back?

He feels the shock rippling through the Sun of the not-baby-thing as Tsuna runs towards the Asari dojo and its well-Warded grounds, where the condensed thing could not follow. He’s set down gently, and Tsuna sneezes violently, expelling a bloody bullet from his nose. He’s dressed in just the under-shirt and leggings he wears to keep warm under his school uniform, and he’s staring down warmly at him. “Those are very pretty eyes, Haya. The dreams were real, weren’t they, sweetheart? You’re mine, aren’t you? My Storm, my very, very pretty Storm, who loves me and calls me pet-names and does all sorts of unspeakable things to me. Things that feel very good and that I would love to feel while I’m awake, Haya-sweetheart."

He feels the Mist-binding shatter, and the last of the Seal on Tsuna’s Flames goes, too, and he hadn’t expected to be nude when he changed back, but he really should have; he’d been seven when he’d been Cursed and any clothes he’d had on would have long since been outgrown, and worn to rags before that as well. And oh, nude but for the collar, apparently, which is much longer and thinner, the bell settling just below his collarbone like a necklace.

“Oh! Umm … hi.” His Tsuna is blushing, and a glance shows him to be painfully aroused, and he drags his little Sky close.

“Hello, Tsuna-tesoro. I am called Gokudera Hayato." He has to cough, then; his voice sounds so strange, and feels even stranger coming out of his throat. “Should have expected the voice-change. Hmm. Well, yes, anyways. Where were we, Tesoro? Ah, yes, when you woke up I was just about to do _this_.

His Tsuna’s lips taste sweet, and his mouth sweeter, and he knows where to find the futon later, but right now he wants to unravel the gorgeous little Sky. “H-haya! Yesssss … _yours_.”

“Can I claim all of you, my Tsuna?”

“Yes. All of me. As far as you want to go, sweetheart.” His Sky and love pets what feel like his fox ears, down his hair, down his back, and over his ass, wrapping his fingers around the apparently still-extant tail to stroke down its length; he goes back to claiming his pretty love’s mouth, and thinks about all the things they can do before Tsuyoshi or Takeshi find them. Mm. Yes, it’s going to be a very pleasurable day.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up warm and sated, with a comfortingly heavy warmth half-over him, whoever was curling around him breathing deeply, asleep still. Then he remembers, and smiles. Between blacking out in the street and coming to he had shed his outer layer, made it to the Asari dojo so deep within the ancient Mist Wards that you couldn’t even see it was there from where they stopped you, and the next he knew he was breaking a years-old curse on his fox, who wasn’t a fox.

Then Hayato had claimed him, had made him feel so much, all of it good, and oh, it had been so fun! And then he'd passed out with Haya still making him feel so good, and then …

"Nnn, Tsu? Tesoro?"

"Have a nice nap, Haya?" Haya nuzzles his neck then licks it, just as he would have done were he a fox, and he feels the nod against his skin. And the shift of something furry near his knee. "You still have the tail, sweetheart."

“I’m aware. The ears, too. By this point I think the form is so ingrained I won’t ever be fully human again. Don’t mind it. Think of what the civilians will think to see me by your side, ears on my head and bell around my neck and tail curling around my legs. They’d see me, see you without your fox, and think exactly what we want them to think. Also, I think I can do …”

There’s a pop of air rushing in to fill a void and Haya, a fox once more, burrows out from under the blanket. “Hah! You can still be a fox!” His bright smile prompts Haya to crouch down, crawling on his belly for pets like he has for two years; he complies and tugs Haya into his lap for cuddles, too. “How long do you think we can fool Kaa-chan?”

“Oh, knowing Nana-chan, for a very long time. No, it’s me you want to fool, seeing as I’m the one you’ll be living with for now.” He squeaks and pulls the blanket over himself and his fox, and there’s a whumph of displaced air as Haya turns human again.

“Oh. Ano. Hi, Tsuyoshi-sama.” Haya pokes his head out of the blankets and looks at Tsuyoshi-tou-san, ears folded down in shame and horror written on his face.

“You know Tsuna’s not legal for another six months, right? He’s not thirteen until the middle of October.” The only father he can remember takes one look at their horrified faces and laughs. “Ah, no, don’t worry. As long as neither of you take things as far as you took them today I have no complaints; the bullet reduces all inhibitions after the fact so you were both drugged. All I ask is that cocks stay out of asses until you’re both legal.” Tsuyoshi-tou-san levels a long, long look at Hayato. “You know, your father is looking for you. He’s offered a six hundred million Euro reward for information on your whereabouts. You want an untraceable phone to call him? Just tell him you’re with Shigure, you have a Sky, and you want to stay hidden, and I’ll take care of the rest.” His Haya nods, and he creeps away to get hakama and juban. And get dressed.

* * *

He lets his second son creep away to get dressed and bring his Storm, Aquila di Falco, a set of clothes while he reassures the boy that no one will make him go back. After he’s dressed, and has made the decision to call his father, he goes to talk to Tsuna.

“There are so many things I never had the time to tell you, Tsuna-chan. Come here.” He opens his arms to the boy and holds him close. “The first is the one you do need to know. You might have Primo’s blood, but it is not through Iemitsu; Nana is a descendant. The second one is also nice for you to know, and explains the first: Iemitsu is not your father. Your mother’s husband had been away for over three years by the time you were conceived, which is legally Abandonment. Nana got lonely, and used to come by to chat with me, and eventually Eiko-chan invited her to spend the night, if you know what I mean?” There’s a squeak from the tiny brunet, and he chuckles. “Mm. You can call me tou-san if you like.”

“T-tou-san? You’re my dad? I … I don’t know what to say …” His son is shaking, shivering, overwhelmed.

“Say you’ll come live with me for good?”

“B-but, but Kaa-chan …”

“Tsuna-chan, when’s the last time Nana had a kind word for you, or called you anything other than ‘dame’, or asked your opinion on anything? When is the last time she approved of your choices, or helped you when you were struggling?”

“I -”

“Ano … Shigure-sama? Padre wants to talk to you.”

“Think about my offer, Tsuna-chan. Talk it over with your Haya.” At his little son’s nod, he accepts the phone and moves out onto the engawa. “Alonso.”

“Tsuyoshi. He told me everything. He was really a fox?”

“For at least two years, likely more, as he was completely comfortable being a fox by the time I met him last year, and was apparently very much comfortable with being treated like one when the Sky in question found him the year before that.”

The man on the other end sighs. “Take care of my boy, you hear me? Oh, and is there room in your house for a piano?”

“I’m sure room could be found, haha!”

“Good. I’ll send it to that company in Tokyo, yes?” He makes an agreeing sound, and the line goes dead. He sighs. Don Alonso Falco is just as terse as he’s always been; no wonder the servants had thought the boy had run. But he remembers the call, both of them. The first, almost thirteen years ago, was mingled joy and sadness at his son's birth and the refusal of his lover to be more than minorly involved with the ones she loved desperately; the second, just over four years ago, revealed a man reeling from the loss of his love and the disappearance of his son in the span of mere months. Judging by what he had heard of that call the two of them were alike: emotionally-constipated idiots who loved each other as much as he and his own boys.

“Tsu - tou-san?” His youngest is and has always been a sneaky little bit of fluff, and makes him jump.

“Yes, Tsuna-chan?”

“I want to live with you. You’re the only father I’ve ever known, apparently you’re my real father too, and Kaa-chan isn’t … stable. She called a number on a construction-paper flyer written in crayon and hired a tutor with no accreditation given or even references. Who then proceeded to tell me I was going to become the boss of the most violent crime Family in Italy while assembling a gun in my bedroom, kicked me in the head, told me that he was going to rip me away from a hobby I can, by all accounts, turn into a successful career, and then told me in no uncertain terms that he was going to make me confess my non-existent crush on Sasagawa Kyoko-chan before shooting me in the head. Look, here’s the bullet, too.” Tsuna offers him an old rag used for wiping spills of oil or incense ash and he opens it to find a red-dyed, blood-crusted bullet - one of the legendary Dying Will rounds - that still radiates faint Flames that aren’t his Tsuna’s Misty Sky.

“Good. I can make it all go away, my sweet son. You’d have to agree to be the Sky of the Asari clan, and accept Tribute from Namimori citizens, but this is a protected retirement town, and you were Sealed and abandoned here with no checks for years. You’re not the son of the man who had you Sealed, nor are you a sworn member of Vongola or the immediate family of one who is sworn to them. There is nothing saying you have to be involved in the shady side of what we do here; all you would have to do is accept tribute to the Asari, give a speech now and then, and approve projects on the moral side of things, if not always the completely legal side. Can you do that?”

“Un!”

“Then let’s go home. All three of us. And Hayato? We need to go shopping for you. You can’t wear dojo clothes everywhere, and we have eighty billion yen, now, at least, to buy clothes and anything else you want with - as you called in on your own, I assume your father gave you account information?” At the fox-eared boy’s nod, he smiles. “Then tomorrow we go shopping. Get our Tsuna new things, and you new things, and get things tailored for that tail of yours, hmm?”

* * *

“Padre.” There’s a gasp, and a thud, and sounds like someone is scrambling for the phone.

“Aquila? Aquila, is that you?”

“Umm. Hi. And it’s Hayato now.”

“Where’d you get that name?”

“Mamma named me that, didn’t she? Gokudera Hayato? I … I look like her, Padre. Wavy silver hair, pale green eyes, long fingers. Though she didn’t have fox ears or a fluffy tail.”

“Fox …” He hears a pause, and then papers shuffling. “Okay, I’ll ask about that if you answer a few questions.”

“Okay?” He’s curious.

“What was the first song you ever played?”

He scoffs. “Easy. One of Mamma’s. Platina.”

“What were your favorite birds growing up?”

“Oh, Padre, come on. I hated birds. Thought their jerky movements and songs made them seem like clockwork creatures, because you brought me to see that collection of clockwork animals with Mamma - Lavina-Mamma, not your wife - when I was three.” His Padre laughed.

"Remember that time I caught a sparrow and put it in a fishtank so you could see it was real and you screamed?”

“Padre, I didn’t scream because of the bird, I screamed at you for bringing a clockwork creature into the house. ‘What if it snips its way out and murders us all?!’”

There's a choked sob. “Oh, my Hayato! Oh, Santa Maria, thank you! Hayato, what happened? Where have you been?”

“I ran, Padre. I ran and I got caught and I was held for weeks, and then your wife showed up. Told me she was the one who had Mamma’s car run off the road, and that with me out of the way her daughter would get everything, but she couldn’t kill me. That it would leave a trail. So she did something complicated with her Mist Flames and I was small and fuzzy and uncoordinated. She told the mooks holding me to keep me for a year and then bring me to another country and dump me on the streets. They got attached, and two years later I guess she was asking questions so one of them brought me to Japan and dumped me in a box in an alley that smelled like pastries and rice and sugar with a blanket and water and someone brought me home. I spent two years pampered and loved and slowly worked away a block on my Sky’s Flames and today he claimed me in words to my face as his Storm and I turned back. I want to stay with him and our Rain, Padre.”

“Well consider it done. Here -” His Padre gives him account information, tells him it’s the six hundred million euro reward plus interest, all for him to do whatever he wants with, to rebuild a human life. “I’ll have your Japanese documents sent, too. Where are you?”

“Padre, I don’t want to say. It would endanger my Sky and myself. She’d come after me. Announce my death; I can have some very convincing photos sent if you like. Support me however you like, and I can try to set up secure calls and maybe even video calls once those get more secure. Just … I can tell you I am with Shigure.”

“Oh, thank God and Mother Mary and all the Saints, Hayato. I’m glad you’re with someone I can trust. Can I speak with him, please?”

“Sure. I … I love you, Padre. I’m sorry I ran; I was scared and angry and wanted nothing to do with you because I thought you killed Mamma.”

“I understand, Hayato. I’m just so glad you’re safe and happy. I love you too, and I’m so proud of you for finding your Sky and your happiness, cucciolino. I’ll talk to you again sometime, okay?”

He blushes at his Padre calling him ‘little kit’ after spending four years as a young fox, and laughs. “Okay, Padre. Goodbye.”

He hands the phone to Tsuyoshi and walks over to his little treasure, his Tsuna.

“So, tesoro, what’s going on, hmm?”

“Haya! Haya …” His little treasure is crying into his juban, although his flames feel happy, if conflicted. “He’s my actual dad, and he wants me to move in with him, and told me he’d take care of me, and said some really mean things about Kaa-chan, and I know they’re true, but I’m scared.”

He pets his treasure’s hair, runs a soothing hand down his back over and over, and leans down to breathe into that gorgeous mass of floof his Tsuna calls hair. “Tsuna, treasure, who has made you feel safer lately?”

“Tou-san.”

“And who has encouraged you, helped you learn how to fight enough to get to help, taught you how to cope with the world through the seal, taught you to use your Flames?”

“Tou-san.”

“And who makes you feel unsafe? Who is going through emotional whiplash so she calls you ‘dame’ one second and the next fusses over you? Who called a number on a flyer written in crayon on cream construction paper, hired a tutor who presented no credentials or references, and heard thumps, screeches, and gunshots and didn’t even check on you, let alone call the Hibari?”

“Kaa-chan.”

“Who would you rather live with, if just the past few months were taken into account?” He hugs his Tsuna closer, and feels a kiss pressed into his cheek. “Tou-san. Tou-san and Takeshi-nii and -“ Tsuna cuts himself off. “Thank you. What did you decide, Haya-sweetheart?”

“I talked to Padre, and he’s letting me stay; I’m staying, tesoro, and I’m never leaving you unless you send me away and tell me you never want to see me again.”

“And that will never happen, Haya.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Iemitsu, Nono. We have an issue. First: did you know, Iemitsu? That Tsuna was not your son?”

There’s a loud squeal of feedback and the phone Leon had turned into jolts and flips shut, disconnecting the call; he waits. When the phone rings a few minutes later and he answers, Nono utters one clipped word. “Explain.”

“Iemitsu never said that the first time he’d been home since marrying Nana was seven years after marrying her, did he? Tsuna was three. Iemitsu was not happy at the legal divorce via abandonment and stole his ex-wife and her young son from the local sushi chef, a retired assassin known as Shigure. He is the head of the Asari clan, and had married her as a secondary wife. His first wife, Eiko, had just died, leaving them with two young children, a mother with no maternal instincts, and a father who ran his own restaurant.” Nono hisses in anger; when no words are forthcoming, he continues. “He used his Flames to brainwash Nana, remove her memories and those of young Yamamoto Tsunayoshi, and lock the woman in his house and her new husband out of it.”

“That is a crime. Are you willing to testify to the Vindice to this?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can tell you he told me he had no idea, but was lying. He was hoping that if no one knew then Tsunayoshi would be able to take over. Reborn, I cannot make him my heir with no relation to Ricardo. It's a failing of the Rings: you must be blood-related to the majority of the dons who have held it. If he was even Iemitsu's bastard that would have worked, as Iemitsu is related to Settimo. But now, even if Nana is related to Primo as her appearance suggests, it would take the extinguishing of every person within three to five generations of the main line to allow him the Rings."

"I see. I did manage to shoot Tsunayoshi with one Dying Will bullet, and the result makes me think your plan wouldn't have worked anyways."

"And why is that, old friend?"

"His resolve was to refuse the Vongola and claim his Storm. He even used the Eastern ritual phrase 'With all the strength of my Sky' instead of the term Dying Will that I'd used before shooting him. He's got a strong Mist secondary and a clear Cloud tertiary, and a bond to both a Rain - likely his half-brother - and an unknown Storm that is so near to a Sky I have to wonder if someone Broke him."

His old friend sighs, silent for a moment before finally speaking the words he dreads. "I'll prepare to unfreeze Xanxus, then. Return for now; we need to plan ahead if we're to bring Tsunayoshi into the Vongola. We cannot leave so powerful a Sky alone to be taken by another Famiglia."

"Of course. I'll be home tomorrow evening."

* * *

He stares hard at the eggs he's rolling. When Oyaji had told him last week that Tsuna was his actual little brother, he didn’t know what to think. He’d screamed and yelled, cried, convinced Oyaji had been unfaithful, but Oyaji had explained. Sleeping with Nana had been a mutual decision, brought up by his mother, and the photo album of the three, four, and five of them convinced him. Actually, it was two specific pictures. One was a picnic photo, probably just before Hanami, with the sakura in bud and early bloom, his mother and Nana curled around each other, him as a two-year-old and an 18-month-old Tsuna sleeping peacefully against them. The other was a formal family portrait, Nana wearing a stunning formal kimono in their family’s colors, his own Kaa-chan in unseparated hakama with a formal kimono hemmed and worn as a long jacket with a naginata propped at her side and a tessen in her obi. His father is in full court armor, Shigure Kintoki on his hip in sword form, behind the two women with a hand each on their shoulders, like a clan head and his wife. Wives? Not unheard of with the Flame Clans; Flames made poly relationships much more likely.

He and Tsuna are still infants in that one, wrapped in silk swaddling, he on Nana’s lap and Tsuna on Kaa-chan’s. The three adults look _happy_ , like a family in a way they haven’t been since not long after Tsuna forgot. He saw the sad, fond smile on his Oyaji’s face as he traced a finger gently over not only his mother’s figure, but Nana’s as well. There were videos, he said, but he wanted to watch those with Tsuna, too, and maybe Nana.

He’d remembered a bit since then, and his Oyaji said what he’d remembered actually happened. He ached for that happiness again.

And now Tsuna is upstairs, sleeping in the room his - their - father had made when he’d learned Nana was pregnant, with a strange silver-haired boy their age that he swore up and down is Hayato.

Hayato, his little brother’s fox, who had apparently been under a Mist-curse since he was eight, who had been mourned as missing but not dead by his Italian father, who is going to be living with them now, who is currently in his 12-year-old brother’s bed, who had bedded his fluffy, innocent baby brother. Yes, Tsuna had been drugged (for a given value of drugged; those bullets sounded traumatising and had felt awful through the Bond) and had pulled on the Bond to the pretty Storm and influenced him into it with Sky, but for their father to allow the sleeping arrangements … he has no idea what to think about it.

His hands go through the motions of cooking, his mind going over the very strange week he’d had, and almost misses Kyōya-kun going through the side of the kitchen to the stairs. “Oyaji?” His father ‘hmm’s and looks away from the hallway. "Why did you let Hayato sleep in Tsuna's bed?"

"Ah. Remember our talk about the different kinds of Flame bonds and what they mean? Well, Tsuna and Hayato-kun have a very, very tightly-wound Consort bond as well as an Element bond. Watch them when they separate for showers and certain lessons; Tsuna will be very uncertain and Hayato will be jumpy. It will make sleeping alone nearly impossible." He winces; that says terrible things about Nana, that they'd snap-bonded that tightly into that sort of bond. "It will likely get better with time, but it's best we don't separate them too much at first."

"Is it, you know, safe? They did, ano …" His father starts laughing.

"Yes, it's perfectly 'safe', silly boy. Hayato is going to look and think vaguely foxlike for the rest of his life. This means he's literally incapable of finding a 'kit' sexually attractive. Tsuna is still a kit in fox terms; with most of his Flames locked away he's had no accelerated puberty like you and Kyōya and Hayato have. Tsuna's physical and sexual immaturity - or lack of full physical and sexual maturity - means Hayato can't think about Tsuna that way without being heavily drugged. The farthest they're likely to go before Tsuna is ready is maybe using hands and, err, mouths on each other."

"Oh. Umm, Tou-san, why do people do that? Have sex, I mean, for fun. It sounds messy and inconvenient and …”

His tou-san sighs and ruffles his hair. "That's a conversation for another time, Takeshi. It's time for breakfast, now, and then we need to get them new things; they can't go around in traditional clothing forever."

* * *

He gets a surprise when Haya shakes him awake. "Tsu, your tou-san just came in. It's time for lunch, dolce."

"HIIIEEE!!! Haya, why didn't he wake us up earlier! Hibari-senpai will bite us to death!" He panics again, silently this time, when a low laugh comes from the door.

"Oh, don't you worry, little animal; your absence for at least the next two and a half weeks is more than excused. I came to congratulate you, Sky of Namimori. And join you for lunch; meeting new cousins properly is always fun."

He whines, and Hayato, wearing a gorgeous set of hakama in dark red and a black haori with a swallow-and-wave crest in bright red on each shoulder (and why is he wearing a retainer's uniform?), picks him up and carries him down the hall to a formal dining area with a low table and the sort of backed, silk-covered cushions that scream heirloom. He'd never seen this room or the door to it in his life, and he'd been in and out of the Yamamoto living quarters for _years_. "Cousins?"

"My father and yours were far-cousins. There's barely enough blood between us to claim that relationship, but we are the ruling clans of Namimori: the Asari have always been the nurturers and caretakers, and the Hibari the protectors and warriors; as we are the latest generation of the main line and there is blood between us, cousins we are." That makes sense from what he remembers of the lessons he joined Takeshi-nii for when they were little. His cousin - and that's weird, calling Hibari-senpai his cousin - smirks and leers at them both. "Are you keeping your Storm as a _traditional_ -"

Haya bristles as he sits cross-legged on the ordinary cushion next to him. "Shut up. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I can hear the innuendo in that tone. We're too young for that shit right now, and I'm only wearing this because I've been Cursed since I was eight and have nothing but the bell around my neck and a bank account with eighty billion yen. Can we save the references for when I'm awake and not wearing wide-leg silk pants and a long bit of cloth? The top's comfy but I'm Italian for all my mother was half, and this sort of shit is fucking -" Hayato looks at him, and his discomfort with the profanity and rough phrasing must show. "Sorry, Tsu. I'm just  
irritated and uncomfortable; growing up with the Falco that's the sort of language I was exposed to and I guess it carries over to my spoken Japanese. Which I still have no idea how I know, given I spoke barely enough to have a conversation about music with Mamma."

There's a cough as Tou-san and Takeshi-nii come in carrying dishes piled with food. "I looked at the remnants of the Curse with Ei-chan's equipment last night while you slept - that was her specialty, Curses and Enchantments and Augmentations - and it looks like Tsuna's Sky twisted the part that gave you the instinct and knowledge of an actual fox to give you what you likely would have known had you kept being human. Academics and general athletics, mostly, as I couldn't see any specific weapons knowledge, but you have diplomacy and language skills, personnel and property management, a bit of legal knowledge for Japan and Europe, and quite a bit of high-level maths."

They all serve themselves, and the next few minutes are silent. “Itoko.”

“Mm? Hibari-senpai?”

“Kyōya, itoko-chan. You’re being homeschooled for the next few weeks at least, to get all the lessons you should have been taking with the two of us.” Hiba- no, Kyōya-kun gestures to himself and Takeshi-nii. “It will give Kusakabe and the Committee time to clean up the school. You should also think of what weapon you wish to use - whether you continue naginata or try others - and if you’d like any other lessons. You’ll have kimono fittings, too, and resume combat lessons.” At his alarm his brother - Takeshi-nii is his actual brother, and he’s still trying to process the family he’s rediscovered - speaks up to reassure him.

“We don’t expect you to fight unless you want to. But sometimes you have to and it’s better to know how, otouto. Also it’s good for coordination.”

He slumps, relieved. “Oh, good. I don’t like fighting.”

“You have to be at least a little crazy to like it, Tsuna-chan.” Tou-san smiles at him. “You might like Kyūdo, in that case - you compete for points given for accuracy and composure, not strikes at people in competition, and Sky Flames work very well with slow-moving projectiles for area effects that incapacitate rather than outright kill. Anyways, we also need to get you new everything. I don’t want that idiot to have anything to hold over you. New clothes, books, electronics. I will pay what was originally paid or standard market value for anything you want to take - limited edition items, non standard controllers, memory cards, consoles and games with internal memories or that are out of print, rare games, plushies, blankets, very favorite clothes. Nana-chan doesn’t work, so everything you own which was not a gift from someone not her was paid for by Iemitsu. I don't want him claiming we owe him anything, as debts can be used to pull you into Italy.” Tou-san frowns. “Kyōya-kun, can your mother’s Kusakabe-chan draw up invoices and witness payment in full?”

“Un. As can Tetsu. Both have the Seal for that sort of thing, and we can use Okaa-sama’s for the final tally. Not even the CEDeF head can go against the word of a ruling noble clan head, let alone two.” There’s a quirk to his cousin’s lips and his next words are wry. “Well, not without leverage.”

* * *

She sits in her kitchen - no, _Iemitsu's_ kitchen - and weeps. Her family. Tsuna, Takeshi, Tsuyo, Ei-chan. Ei-chan had just _died_ the last thing she remembers clearly, and now, suddenly, seven and a half years have gone by, she is trapped in this house, and she'd hired a hitman, _the_ hitman, to tutor her son, all because the flyer had mentioned the man who abandoned her.

She stares at the greenish glass bottle, at the clear liquid inside, and starts crying again. This is the last of it; the last of Ei-chan's shochu, unless Tsuyo has more. She doubts it; it's been seven years, seven years that he actually lived instead of floated through in a daze. She picks up the phone, calls.

"Takesushi!"

"Tsuyo. Help me." She hangs up, watching her hand as it moves on its own.

She should start cooking! Tsu-kun will be home from school soon and she needs to have snacks ready for him and that nice Yamamoto boy! Maybe this time he'll stay for dinner! It's so nice to see her son thriving. It's too bad that tutor had a family emergency and had to leave.

Oh! Why is there alcohol on the table? That shouldn't be there. What if her little Tsu-kun finds it?

* * *

Tsuyoshi stares at the phone in shock. His Nana had called him, voice rough with tears, and begged him for help. She'd sounded desperate, helpless, just like she had after their Eiko died. Then she'd hung up.

He rounds the counter and slumps into a stool, laying his head on folded arms. Raising Takeshi and Tsuna with Eiko gone had been hard for the two of them, with him in the shop most of the day and Nana not a natural parent for all she loves children, but when Iemitsu had stolen his remaining wife away it had become almost impossible. For the first year Takeshi hadn't stopped crying and had trouble sleeping, saying the bed they had shared was empty and cold without Tsuna's warm Flames and the smaller boy to cuddle at night. (He tries not to think about how he'd locked the master suite and hidden it away, calling up a smaller room from the Mist-wards on the ancestral home and furnishing it with nothing more than a chest, a cabinet, a low table, and a futon once Nana had been taken, unable to sleep at all in the bed he'd shared with his two loves, his wives.)

He'd watched as his son had stopped smiling as school had started, his once-blinding grins becoming wider and emptier when Tsuna no longer remembered him; he'd complained viciously that everyone was mean, that the teachers were tormenting "his Tsuna", that he had no time to actually play with Tsu-kun because he was too busy making sure no one hurt his Sky. (Takeshi barely remembered even that early that Tsuna was his brother, and that had hurt, seeing his son repress the memories of their family.)

Tsuna's upstairs with Hayato, after having a panic attack at realising how few things he wanted to keep. The list wasn't even one piece of paper, just ten items, all gifts, which he'd sent Takeshi and Kyōya to retrieve while Hayato pounced on his younger son and proceeded to kiss him senseless to distract him.

He's just wondering whether to open a bottle of Eiko and Nana's shochu to have by himself when Takeshi walks in, minus Kyōya, and sits next to him, putting down the bag with his otouto's few precious things carefully. "She thinks Tsuna will be home any second, Tou-san. Nana-kaa's so broken and it hurts."

He pulls his son into a hug. "Oh, Takeshi, sweetheart, there's something wrong with her. Iemitsu messed with her mind. We can get her out, though; she called me for help just after you left. I'm calling Kasumi tonight after close."

"No need. Where's my little nephew?"

* * *

He'd just gotten Tsuna to sleep when the door opens quietly, slowly, and someone pokes their head in. He growls - this woman is unfamiliar - but she just puts a finger to thin lips and steps into his Tsuna's bedroom.

"Ah. You must be Hayato. Don't wake him; I suspect he needs the sleep." She walks carefully to the raised platform Tsuna's futon lays on and sits on the very edge. "We're working now on breaking the Flame Wards keeping us out of Iemitsu's home. We should have them down by tomorrow evening. Prepare him for Nana going missing; she'll be gone for at least a few weeks while we work on untangling the mess that bastard's made of her mind."

He turns human with a whumph of displaced air and glares at the woman. "Who the fuck are you and why should I let you near my tesoro?"

"My name is Hibari Kasumi. I am Kyōya's mother. And I will be teaching you both what you need to know to be Sky and Consort of Namimori."

* * *

Him? Consort? To his Tsuna?

He pulls the tiny brunet closer, cuddling him, more for his comfort than Tsuna’s; his little one is out cold. He has to admit the thought disturbs him: his tesorino is still a kit, a child, and all his knowledge of Consort bonds paints them as sexual, a bond forged in pleasure between the sheets. It had been painfully obvious that even though Tsuna was clearly capable of enjoying sex and even of comprehending it enough to consent, he was nowhere near ready to actually want it on his own.

Yes, he loves his Sky romantically, but sexually? The thought of bedding a kit, even an adolescent one, makes him shudder; the thought of already having done so makes him feel sick.

“Haya-koi?” Tsuna sounds a bit worried under the sleepy slurring, and he smooths his tesorino's hair back from a furrowed brow. "Wha's wrong?"

"Bad thoughts, Tesorino. I … I made a mistake, Tsuna, and it's eating at me."

"A mistake? What mis- … no. No, Haya, please, no. You- you can't leave me here alone!" His little Tsu is panicking, and no, _no_.

He crawls into Tsuna's lap, still human, and presses gentle kisses to his hair, his forehead, his eyelids, cheeks, nose, chin. Then he gently kisses his Tsu's lips, presses, and oh, it's sweet, feeling his little treasure's lips move against his, warm and soft and sweet like the reddest strawberries. He pulls away, reluctantly.

"I love you, Tsuna, tesorino. I am _staying_ with you." Tsuna opens his mouth and he shuts it, pushing up on his chin with a thumb and pressing two fingers to those soft lips. "Shh. Let me speak?"

Tsuna wriggles out from under him and sits in his own lap, cuddling and clinging, and he pets his love's hair, rocking him until the shaking stops. "I didn't mean to imply I wanted to leave, sweetheart. Forgive me?" A nod. "My mistake was bedding you, Tesorino, before you matured. You're still a kit - you still smell like one, you've not gone far enough through puberty, and it makes my stomach turn to think of what we did. I enjoyed it, I did, and I know you did too, but -"

Tsuna nods against his chest. "It goes against your morals. I get it, I do. I … I feel the same way, actually. It was too soon, much too soon. I mean, it felt good, so so so good, but- but -" Tsuna squirms uncomfortably, and that has a predictable effect, and he blushes. "Oh! Umm, sorry."

"Mm, don't apologise. Take it as a compliment that you squirming can make me think of how it will feel for me to let you do that in a few months or more, when you're ready. Now, go back to bed and I'll be back in - he gauges his arousal, and how fast his fantasies can … take care of the inconvenience. "- ten minutes or so. Okay, Tesorino?"

"Can I help? I won't- I won't touch you if you don't want, but I can talk, and I think I'd like that, to see you come undone again." Oh, the Flame he sees in those eyes is gorgeous, and he only needs a bit more. " _C-cum_ , Haya!" He does, and the world goes grey, and oh, there's something to curl around and warm over him and he breathes in - and sleeps.


End file.
